Friday, July 29

What Krugman Says, Vol. DCCXLV

Paul Krugman, "The Centrist Cop-Out". July 28
So what’s with the buzz about a centrist uprising? As I see it, it’s coming from people who recognize the dysfunctional nature of modern American politics, but refuse, for whatever reason, to acknowledge the one-sided role of Republican extremists in making our system dysfunctional. And it’s not hard to guess at their motivation. After all, pointing out the obvious truth gets you labeled as a shrill partisan, not just from the right, but from the ranks of self-proclaimed centrists.

But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.

AND, we might add, perpetrating a shameful sell-out to the Nixon administration, one which has gone on now for forty-three years without the slightest hint of a public reevaluation. We've had a fuller discussion of the appropriateness of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for fuck's sake, and we still would be if Rand Paul wasn't a pussy.

And it's Nixon; this is the last guy your modern journalistic celebrity would admit he'd bend over backwards for rather than tell the truth about.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see the Nixon connection, but it's kind of tenuous. After all, there have been so many points between '74 and now where that chain could have been broken.

But the more relevant Nixon connection is the fact that the press became completely cowed after bringing down Nixon. Once the media realized the power they had, they chose to never actually use that power again in any honest manner. Sure, they would happily bring down [Democratic] politicians for silly stuff, and perhaps grudgingly bring down a Republican. But doing any actual digging and analysis that could topple an administration? Never!

Just consider two of the more visible scandals of Reagan's administration: Iran-Contra and the HUD scandals. Either of those should have been sufficient to ensure The Gipper joined Nixon in ignominy. But the press ran away from both of those scandals as fast as they could. When Reagan finally went on national TV and said, essentially, "I'm lying to all of you right now," nobody in the press could even be bothered to note that.

Cowardice it what is killing our country/

Anonymous said...

For you non Hoosiers out there, I hope your roads aren't in as bad of shape as ours are. Some of them look like war zones. But hey, we cut your taxes!

Pearl of the Prairie said...

I don't know about your side roads, but I thought of this blog as I was trapped on I-80 outside of Joliet to pay my .60 at the Indiana toll booth. For four hours. We can't blame this on Mitch since it has been this way for, oh, thirty years? In other words, t'fuck????